A Moment In Time: Team Effort
by Dark-Supernatural-Angel
Summary: [Alternate Ending OR Tag-on to 5x11] What if the gang caught on to Katherine's plan before she truly got it started?


**"A Moment In Time"**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the characters; those belong to their original creators. The way it's all stringed together is of my making. No profit is being made out of this (*sigh* unfortunately).

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**Fandom(s): **Vampire Diaries**  
Character(s): **Main Cast**  
Pairing: **none

**Rating: **T**  
Words: **2,166 words

**Requested By: **none**  
Challenge/Summary: **[Tag on to 5x11] What if the gang caught on to Katherine's plan before she truly got it started?  
**Inspiration: **It truly annoyed me that with all their resources in that gang, they couldn't figure out that Katherine was up to something. I mean they have two people who could see ghosts and those ghosts can spy on anyone! See where I'm going with this?

**Spoiler(s): **everything up to ep. 5x11 ("500 Years of Solitude")  
**Time Frame: **This is meant to take place immediately after Katherine says the spell on Elena (yet before Elena wakes up on the ground).

**A/N: **At the end to avoid additional spoilers.

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***VD*VD*VD*VD*VD***

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**"Team Effort"**

A loud thud was heard on the main floor, causing all beings with enhanced hearing to turn their heads…leaving only three teenagers with confused looks on their faces.

"What's wrong?" Jeremy asked when he noticed that all the supernatural beings in the room (including the few ghosts that popped in to say hi) had turned their attention towards the stairs.

"I believe the bitch is finally dead." Damon snickered before he took another swig of his bourbon.

Bonnie's brow furrowed as she searched the room for any sign of Katherine's ghost. "I don't see Katherine anywhere."

Everyone turned back to glance at the anchor.

"What do you mean you don't see her?" Damon snapped as he narrowed his stare at her, "She collapsed, we all heard it."

Jeremy frowned, "But didn't you sedate her in bed? Even if she did die, why would she collapse?"

The room was silent as the words sunk in before the Salvatore brothers blurred up to Stefan's bedroom. Caroline and Tyler were close behind them, followed by the hurried footsteps from Matt, Bonnie and Jeremy.

***VD*VD*VD*VD*VD***

When the Salvatores first arrived, they immediately noticed that both doppelgangers were unconscious.

Damon rushed to Elena's side to see if he could wake her up while Stefan went to check on Katherine.

Stefan reached for Katherine's wrist, "There's no pulse." He announced just as the others had joined them.

"Then where is her spirit?" Bonnie questioned before she headed towards Elena's unconscious form, "If she's truly dead then I should feel her nearby."

"Well you saw her a moment ago, didn't you?" Matt questioned as he looked between the two doppelgangers.

"Yeah, but she kept muttering about it being _too soon _before she disappeared from my sights." The anchor explained before everyone's attention was brought back to the groaning doppelganger.

Elena slowly opened her eyes, only to be greeted by the concerned faces of her friends. For a moment she was surprised that Damon was one of the few people who were truly beside her, as if he were the one that tried to wake her.

"What happened?" Elena grumbled after massaging the back of her head.

"That's what we'd like to know." Damon commented before he helped Elena to a chair. She thanked him with a nod before she accepted the glass of water that Caroline had retrieved for her moments ago.

Elena sighed after taking a few sips of water, "I remember injecting Katherine with the last sedative but then she just grabbed me. I blacked out after that."

Matt blinked. "Blacked out?" He didn't like the sound of that.

"_It's the spell,_" an unknown voice exclaimed, causing two of the room's occupants to turn to its source. "_Katerina performed the transfer spell before her body succumbed to the sedatives._"

Jeremy's jaw dropped in surprise, "Rose?" He remembered the vampire he had to connect with in Denver for Damon and Elena. He hadn't expected to see her again since he never met her when she was among the living.

Damon's head snapped up to Jeremy. "Rose is here?"

Jeremy ignored Damon, "What are you doing here?"

Rose shrugged, "_I figured that someone needed to keep an eye on Katerina during her final moments. She doesn't call herself a survivor for nothing you know._" The ghost explained before her eyes landed on Damon and Elena.

Before Jeremy could ask anything more, Damon interrupted, "Why is she here? What is she saying?"

"She said that Katherine did the transfer spell on Elena." Jeremy explained to the others before he turned to look at Rose, "Any way we could undo it?"

"Hang on, Katherine had refused to do the spell on her psycho daughter and yet you're telling me that she did it on Elena instead?" Damon interrupted once again with a little more anger in his tone.

"I guess, in a way, it makes sense," Bonnie supplied with a shrug, "Katherine has never really been the type to just sit back and let things happen to her."

"We get it, so while on her deathbed, she's still a schemer but what does this mean for Elena?" Caroline piped in, in hopes of getting everyone back on track. The blonde vampire was worried for her silent yet now possessed friend.

Bonnie and Jeremy looked to Rose for an answer yet it wasn't her that gave it to them.

"The knife," Matt and Stefan answered together before they looked to one another.

"What?" Tyler questioned as he looked between his best friend and the vampire.

"When Matt was possessed by Gregor, Nadia had to bring Gregor forward in order for Katherine to question him and she eventually killed him with this knife." Stefan explained as he recalled the little interrogation moment he witnessed between Katherine and the imposing Traveler.

"And then before Nadia left town, she gave me the knife in hopes that Katherine would change her mind about the possession idea. She said that I needed to keep it safe and hidden." Matt continued the story.

"So where's the knife?" Jeremy asked.

"It's back at Tyler's place. I'll go get it now." Matt offered before he left the room with Tyler (who offered to escort him just in case Nadia attacked him again).

"Alright, so we get the knife and then what?" Caroline asked.

"Well Katherine had killed Gregor while he was in control of Matt so in order to kill Katherine, we would have to call her out of Elena." Stefan theorized as he remembered back on how Katherine had handled Gregor.

Everyone turned to look at Elena, who had been silent since she woke up.

"Elena?" Bonnie called out to her friend.

Elena looked up, "Hm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just…for a moment there I thought I had made peace with her and then she does this…" Elena shrugged yet her disappointment was evident in the way her voice had trailed off. "I guess there really is no changing Katherine."

Damon rolled her eyes, "It's going to take more than Katherine dying to change 500 years of her being evil."

Elena wanted to argue that Damon had changed from his evil ways yet she knew that then wasn't the time. And he was right, she should have known better…Katherine was never going to change her ways. She always looked out for herself no matter the cost to anyone else.

***VD*VD*VD*VD*VD***

As the group waited for Matt and Tyler to return with the Traveler's knife, they had received (and ignored) many calls from Nadia to Elena; it was weird enough to see Nadia's number on Elena's phone. After a few calls, they figured out that Nadia must have been trying to activate Katherine from within Elena. However, they figured that they didn't have long before Nadia returned to see why her calls were being ignored.

As they waited, they figured out that while Katherine was in control, the vampires would have to restrain her since they weren't sure if Katherine would be able to tap into Elena's vampire strength or not. Once restrained, someone would stab Katherine with the knife which would leave the ghosts (Rose, Alaric and Vicki wanted to see this through) to restrain Katherine's spirit long enough for Bonnie to get to her and make physical contact, to ensure that her soul passed through the anchor. They even got a blood bag ready for Elena to consume once she was back in control.

Luckily for them, Matt and Tyler returned not long after leaving.

Matt quickly entered and handed the knife over to Stefan. "So how are we going to do this?"

"We need to call Katherine forward." Stefan stated before he passed the blade to his brother. They both knew that Stefan would hesitate in killing Katherine when the time came. Damon, on the other hand, has been waiting for Katherine to die all day and while she may currently be in Elena's body, he had to forgot that piece of information if he wanted to see the bitch dead.

Jeremy turned to Rose. "Any chance that you know the activation spell?"

"Vyjdi. _Say it and Katherine should be in control._" The ghost explained.

"How can we tell?" The medium asked while the anchor told everyone else a summarized version without using the specific word.

"_You'll see the change in her eyes. That's your indicator._" Rose finished as everyone else got ready.

Stefan and Tyler moved to stand on either side of a now standing Elena as Caroline stood behind her. With the knife in his hand, Damon moved to stand in front of Elena while Jeremy, Bonnie and Matt stayed a few steps behind him.

"Are you ready for this?" Damon questioned his ex-girlfriend. He didn't like think of her as such but now wasn't the time to dwell on their relationship issues. They had a spirit to expel.

Elena nodded. "Just get her out of me." She relinquished her arms to Stefan and Tyler. She could feel their firm grips around her wrists and her upper arms.

Damon nodded, "Say it," he told Jeremy as he played close attention to her eyes.

"_Vyjdi,_" Jeremy firmly stated from his position.

Damon watched as Elena's brown eyes had blinked to black before they returned to their normal color. Her body jerked back a bit, her eyes widened a bit at the close proximity she was in with Damon before she registered the fact that she was being restrained.

"Wha-"

"Hello again, Katherine," Damon sneered.

Katherine sputtered, "Damon, what are you-"

"Don't even try it," He cut her off before she could finish her charade. "We all know it's you and not Elena."

"This is insane! Let me go Damon, please! I'm not Katherine!" The doppelganger pleaded, in hopes that he'd succumb to the idea of being wrong and that it truly was his Elena that was being restrained and not her.

Damon ignored her pleas as he twirled the knife in his hands. The ones behind him noticed how her eyes had shifted to the weapon before they widened in fear. It was a look that Elena didn't have moments before they started.

"It's Katherine." Jeremy's voice was clipped as he looked at the manipulative Petrova.

"Good enough for me," Damon quickly stabbed Katherine in the stomach.

The former doppelganger gasped in pain as she looked to Damon, only to see cold eyes directed at her.

"Goodbye Katherine." Damon stated before he twisted the knife a bit more. He watched her eyes blink to black before they returned to soft brown eyes again…Elena's eyes.

"Did it work?" Elena sputtered as she tried to grip onto something; the three vampires restraining her had moved to hold her up instead.

Damon quickly removed the knife. "Did it?" He questioned before he looked over his shoulder. He saw Matt and Jeremy have their focus on Bonnie as she moved to an empty space within the room.

While Matt couldn't see anything, Jeremy watched as Katherine's spirit struggled against the hold that Alaric and Rose had on her (since both ghosts had died as vampires, they had the advantage over Katherine who died as a human/doppelganger/Traveler).

"_You can't do this to me!_" Katherine shouted as Bonnie closed the distance between them.

"It's time for you to cross over now." Bonnie declared without emotion at the being that had brought so much chaos into their lives.

The anchor reached out her hand until she made contact with the struggling Petrova.

While the others (aside from Jeremy) couldn't see the spirits, everyone saw how Bonnie's body contorted in pain for a few moments before she had straightened herself up.

Matt shifted a bit towards Jeremy, "Does that happen every time?"

Jeremy only nodded as his attention was entirely on Bonnie.

"Well?" Damon questioned as they all watched Bonnie recover.

"She's transitioned over. She won't be an issue anymore." Bonnie declared before a small smile appeared on her face.

"Hallelujah," Damon smirked before he turned back around to Elena, "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," Elena confessed before she winced; the wound was taking longer to heal than expected. A few moments later, Caroline passed a blood bag to Elena (which she took gratefully).

"So we're in the clear?" Tyler slowly asked as he looked around the room.

"_Not exactly. You still have Nadia and the Travelers to worry about._" Alaric reminded them even though Jeremy and Bonnie could only hear him.

"Rick says we still have Nadia and the Travelers to worry about." Jeremy reported as he watched Elena regain her strength again. Once she consumed the blood bag's contents, he didn't hesitate to hug her.

Caroline pouted, "Must we worry about them?"

Everyone looked around at one another, not really sure what they should do next.

Should they figure out a way to handle Nadia?

Or should they continue with their celebration?

Among the group, there was one vampire that knew exactly what he wanted to do…celebrate the death of the woman that destroyed his life.

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**A/N #1: **And there you have it! What'd you think? I just couldn't handle how the 100th episode had ended without anyone noticing what the dying doppelganger had done so I just had to write this and use the resources that are_ clearly_ available to the gang yet not used because of the guest star availability issues. **Please leave a review!**

**A/N #2:** So I just watched 5x12 and I got to say…I like my conclusion of the possession problem a lot better. Although, 5x12 has me thinking of a mini tag-on that I may write up within the week.

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**Originally Published: **January 30, 2014


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